Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.”
“We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.”
Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.”
Photo: Lam Yik Fei, Bloomberg
“Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
Altman is in the process of closing the round, “but we will definitely participate in the next round of financing because it’s such a good investment,” he added.
The Wall Street Journal on Friday reported that a plan that Nvidia had announced in September last year to invest as much as US$100 billion in OpenAI overall had stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal.
Citing unidentified people familiar with the matter, the Journal reported that Huang had privately emphasized that the US$100 billion agreement was nonbinding, had privately criticized what he has described as a lack of discipline in OpenAI’s business approach and expressed concern about competition.
When asked by a reporter in Taipei about the report that seemed to suggest he was not happy with OpenAI, Jensen said: “That’s nonsense.”
OpenAI has been seeking to raise as much as US$100 billion in its current funding round, a person familiar with knowledge of the matter said.
Amazon.com Inc was in talks to invest as much as US$50 billion in the fundraise and expand an agreement that involves selling computer power to the artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, the person said on Thursday.
Microsoft Corp is in discussions to participate as well, The Information had previously reported.
Nvidia’s massive investment commitment to OpenAI, a key buyer of its advanced AI chips, has stoked concerns about the circular nature of AI deals over the past year. Investors are increasingly questioning how such partnerships — in which tech companies are investing in AI businesses that purchase their products — might be artificially propping up demand.
In a separate such deal, Nvidia announced plans to invest an additional US$2 billion in CoreWeave Inc, a cloud computing provider that is also a key customer.
As part of a letter of intent signed in September, Nvidia said it planned to invest as much as US$100 billion in OpenAI to support new data centers and other AI infrastructure.
The deal was designed to help OpenAI build data centers with a capacity of at least 10 gigawatts of power — equivalent to the peak electricity demand of New York — equipped with Nvidia’s advanced chips to train and deploy AI models.
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